TIER Progress Monitoring Tool

Welcome to this introduction to the TIER progress monitoring tool, a free progress monitoring platform that you can use to house your progress monitoring data. In this video, we will show you how to access and use the TIER progress monitoring tool, and we will explain how it can support you in instructional decision making. In case you are not familiar with TIER, which stands for Tiered Interventions Using Evidence Based Research, the TIER network provides comprehensive intervention best practices within a multi tiered system of supports, MTSS, for all stakeholders across Texas. Before we show you the progress monitoring tool, let's review the purpose and benefits of a progress monitoring tool, as well as discussing when it should be used. This common understanding will support your instructional decision making and planning. Let's turn our attention to that first question in our objectives. Why use a progress monitoring tool? Managing data in an organized, cohesive, and accessible manner allows for data analysis, a process of inspecting the findings to support decision making. Collaboration, when everyone has access and an understanding of the system and the information provided, it allows for an interactive dialogue about what the data reveal. We want this to be focused and productive, leading to evidence informed planning. Data informed decision making, understanding various data sources in the educational system and how these data inform student centered and instructional focused planning and delivery. Further, progress monitoring tools can help educators track student progress over time, Identify necessary changes to the curriculum or instructional delivery. Manage instructional time more efficiently. Identify students not making adequate progress in a timely manner. Determine whether students are experiencing success with current interventions or need more intensive supports and intervention. And see evidence of improvement and celebrate progress toward goals. When would using a progress monitoring tool be beneficial? As this graphic illustrates, progress monitoring is useful in all tiers of intervention. At tier one, universal intervention, progress monitoring is used for at risk students. At tiers two and three, targeted and intensive intervention, progress monitoring is used to determine whether students are experiencing success with current interventions or if they need more intensive supports and intervention. Graphing progress monitoring data is important because this allows educators to compare students' trend lines to their goal lines. The TIER progress monitoring tool makes it easy to graph one or several students' data. The student's rate of improvement, ROI, or actual trend line should be compared to the desired rate of improvement or the goal line. Graphing six to eight data points is recommended because the weekly rate of improvement may differ and it takes time to see improvement. If progress monitoring data indicate that the intervention is working, interventions and progress monitoring should continue. However, if the data indicate that the intervention is not working, diagnostic data should be collected to hypothesize about why the student is struggling. The interventions should be adapted and or intensified based on this hypothesis. In the example shown on the screen, the student's actual trend line is below the benchmark goal line. This is an example of a decision making rubric to aid in making decisions based on progress monitoring graphs. As this decision making rubric shows, if the trend line is steeper than the goal line, we can increase the goal for the student. If the trend line were even with the goal line, we can continue as is. If the trend line were flatter than the goal line, we would want to modify our instruction. Before we move to the TIER progress monitoring tool, let's take a moment to reflect on our learning so far. To what extent do you currently collect, graph, and analyze progress monitoring data for your students? What tools do you currently use? Do you currently use a decision making rubric such as the one shown on the previous slide? If not, how might using such a rubric alter your decision making process? We invite you to pause this video and take two to three minutes to reflect on these questions. We encourage you to write down your responses to aid in your reflection. If you are viewing this video with colleagues, please take the time to discuss your responses as a group following your individual reflection. When reviewing the different ways to manage data via surveys taken across the state of Texas, it has been found that a comprehensive data management system is better geared towards managing screening or benchmark data than data notebooks or folders or self generated spreadsheets or forms. With the understanding that progress monitoring is conducted more frequently than screening, we could conclude that a standalone comprehensive data management system is necessary to allow for the increased individualized review of student level data. We have designed a progress monitoring platform that you can use to house your progress monitoring data for those individual students who need to be monitored, and it is free. Let's explore now what it has to offer. We will begin by reviewing instructions for the use of the tool, and we will share the features of the platform. Along the way, we will provide a practice scenario to illustrate how this tool can aid in instructional decision making. When you first open the progress monitoring tool, you may receive a pop up message such as this that says the workbook contains macros, and it asks you if you want to disable or enable the macros. If you are asked this question, you will want to click on enable macros because macros are the automation that is embedded within this Excel workbook. And we do want that automation so that it automatically populates our graph and our score summary. And this is from a trusted source, so you will want to click enable. Now it opens to the data entry tab. I'm going to click on the first tab or the first worksheet, which is instructions. And let's review the instructions together. I'm going to increase the font size on my screen so it's a little easier to read. Let's first go over the overview instructions for using the student progress monitoring tool. So first, this tool is intended to facilitate progress monitoring for students receiving interventions. Progress monitoring data is entered on the data entry worksheet and intervention data is entered in the events worksheet. Once we've entered our information in those two worksheets, then we can review student progress on the graph worksheet, which auto populates based on what we entered in the data entry and events worksheets. We'll also take a look at the score summary worksheet that summarizes all students' current progress. The final tab that you see at the bottom, the final worksheet, is some normative data for oral reading fluency. So if the progress monitoring measure that you're using is oral reading fluency, you could click on that lookup tab to see what the norms are to help you set your goals for students. General instructions, the first time that you use the spreadsheet, you may need to do a couple things to enable use. If you see a protected view message above the formula line, which is this line up here that says FX, then you'll click the Enable Editing button. After you enable editing, another message may appear saying, Security Warning Macros Have Been Disabled. If that appears, then click Enable Content. Again, we need to enable those macros. So let's go over each of the individual worksheets, and I'll show you what they look like and how to use them. So the first worksheet we're going to talk about is data entry. So the data entry worksheet is used to enter the basic information for each student you would like to monitor. So there is some sample student data that's just included as a reference, and you can use the clear data button at the bottom left of the data entry tab to erase that sample data. So I'm going to click on the Data Entry tab. Here's the button that says Clear Data. If I were actually going to use this progress monitoring tool, would want to click that data and it asks me, Am I sure? And I'll say, Okay. Now, I actually want that sample data there because I'm going to show you a sample of what the graph will look like for these sample students. So I'm not going to do that. Next, goal setting. So progress monitoring goals can be set as a benchmark goal and or a national rate of improvement goal. A benchmark goal represents the goal score for that student on the benchmark date. Note that a benchmark goal must have a corresponding benchmark date entered. A national rate of improvement goal represents the average weekly improvement you hope to observe. Let's go back to the data entry worksheet so I can show you this. So in the purple here, we see a benchmark goal and goal date entered for student A. So the benchmark goal is forty five. The goal date is June first. Because I entered a benchmark goal, I have to enter a benchmark goal date. I've also entered a national rate of improvement goal for this student, but you could do one or the other. So, if you see for student B, I've only entered a national rate of improvement goal, not a benchmark goal. And for student C, I've only entered a benchmark goal, not a national rate of improvement goal. So, it's fine to do eitheror or both. Now, going back to the instructions, the intervention end date represents the date by which you anticipate stopping or reevaluating the student's intervention. Note that an intervention end date is required to graph student progress. So again, clicking on the Data Entry tab here, we see an intervention end date entered for student A, student B, and then some of our other students. This will allow us to see those students' graphs. Go back to the instructions. Number four, the group. The group column is optional. It can be used to evaluate group or class progress. Note that when evaluating group progress, it's important that differences in measures and goals are considered. So on the data entry worksheet, you will see that I've entered a one for student B and student C, so that on the graph tab, the graph worksheet, I'll be able to look at these two students together. Note that these two students that I've marked are using the same progress monitoring measure so that I could make comparisons between them potentially based on their different goals. But I wouldn't want to compare, let's say, someone with a computation measure, compare them to someone with a MACE measure. So we need to be careful when analyzing the group data. Next, the score entry. Individual scores can be entered beginning with column L and continuing for each subsequent score. Do not skip rows between students. On the data entry tab, this represents column L here in the green score number one, and there are many, many columns. You can enter a lot of student data. We've actually entered forty different scores for these sample students. And finally, the score date entry. Every score entered requires a score date. And note that for any date entry, you could enter this manually or you can double click to bring up a date picker. I'll just briefly share with you what that looks like. So here I could enter this date manually or double click and I see a calendar pop up and I could just click on the date that I would like to enter. So those are the instructions for the data entry worksheet. Now let's look at the instructions for the events worksheet. This worksheet is used to document interventions, intervention modifications, and other significant events that may affect student performance. If we click on the Events tab down here, it brings up the Events worksheet, and we see that we've entered some sample information for students A, B, and C. For each event, we've entered the event date as well as a brief event description. Going back to the instructions worksheet, let's look at the instructions for the graph worksheet. The graph worksheet provides a flexible visual display of student data that helps us observe trends. We could select an individual display, meaning we select a single student to graph, and then that student's corresponding goal lines will display along with any significant events. If we select multiple students, then we'll see the group display where we see each of the students that we've selected their observed scores. However, their respective goal lines and events will not display in the group display. And note, again, when we're comparing multiple students, it is important to consider differences in measures and goals. Let's click on the graph tab to see the graph worksheet. So you notice that we do not need to enter any information in this worksheet. It auto populates based on what we've entered in the data entry and events worksheets. So we see here, based on what we've entered for student A, we have these data points here. These are the observed data points in blue. We see the red line, which is the benchmark goal line because we entered a benchmark goal for the student. We also see a black line, which is a trend line based on the student's actual observed data points that we've entered. And we see a green line, which is the national ROI goal line. So we can see that for this student, their actual data points are falling below their benchmark goal line, but above the national ROI goal line. We also see for this student the events that we've entered, they appear as vertical lines so that we can see any intervention changes or other significant events, and we can use that to aid in our decision making about this student. Now, student A, this is computation data. If I click on student B, now this shifts from seeing an individual student display to a group display. I'm seeing the data points for both student A and student B, And I need to be careful about not comparing these two students based on this group display because one of the students is being tested using a computation progress monitoring tool and the other on MAZE. So these are not comparable data points. So to deselect student A, I would click again on student A and now only student B is highlighted and I see that student's MAZE data. Now let's think about our possible action steps for this student based on the rubric that we explored in the first part of this video. We see the student's actual data points in blue, their trend line is in black, and the national ROI goal line is in green. We also see two events, changes of intervention. We have event one, event 1B, event five. Hopefully that means something to us since we've entered that information. Think about that decision making rubric. Based on the most recent series of data points, what might be your actions for this student? And since that student's trend line is steeper than it's above their goal line, we might consider raising the goal for that student if we are using that decision making rubric that we looked at earlier in this video. Now, let's look at the score summary tab next. So, I'm going to go back to the instructions and look at the score summary instructions. This worksheet provides a summary of all students' progress. Again, we don't need to enter data in the score summary worksheet. It auto populates based on what we've entered in the data entry and events worksheets. We'll see a few things on this page. One is a baseline score. That column displays the mean, the mathematical average of the student's first three observed scores. We'll see an estimate of their current level. That column displays the mean, the average of the student's last three observed scores. We'll see an observed student ROI. This column calculates the current rate of improvement for the student. And then we'll see the ROI trend. This column displays a dichotomous indicator of whether the observed student ROI is above, on track, or below, off track, the national ROI goal. Dichotomous means we're going to see one of two things. It'll either tell us they're on track or they're off track. Finally, the benchmark trend. This column displays a dichotomous indicator of whether the observed student ROI is sufficient to meet the benchmark goal. So let's click on the score summary tab to bring up the score summary worksheet. And it's a little small. I'm going to just increase my display size so you can see it better. So you see every student that we've entered data for and the data entry tab shows up here in the first column. If we have assigned them a group, we can see that here, the measure utilized, and then these scores that I just described on that instructions page. So let's look at student A. We see that they are on track for the ROI trend, but they're off track for the benchmark trend. Now, both of these columns are showing up for this student because I entered both a national ROI goal and a benchmark goal in the Data Entry tab. For Student B, you see only that they're on track for their ROI trend. We don't see whether they're on or off track for their benchmark trend. That's just because we did not enter a benchmark goal in the Data Entry tab, which is fine. So this score summary gives us some more information to use in our decision making about these students. Now, the final tab that we have is Lookup. So again, if we're using an oral reading fluency curriculum based measurement, we can select the Lookup tab to help determine benchmark goals by grade. So let's click on the Lookup tab. This brings up the Lookup worksheet, and there's a dropdown box. Let's say I'm interested in grade six. I select that and then we see the benchmark percentiles appear here for fall, winter, and spring, and the average weekly improvement that we would expect to see. These norms are derived from these resources linked below here. So, lookup worksheet can aid us in establishing our benchmark goals for students for that data entry tab. So now that we've explored the progress monitoring tool, let's reflect on our learning. Consider what are my next steps in using this progress monitoring tool? Which of my students will I track using this tool? What progress monitoring data will I collect? How often will I collect these data? What are potential obstacles to using this tool? And how will I overcome those obstacles? We invite you to pause this video and take two to three minutes to reflect on these questions. We encourage you to write down your responses to aid in your reflection. If you are viewing this video with colleagues, please take the time to discuss your responses as a group following your individual reflection. If you have any questions or need additional support, please contact the TIER team at tiermeadowscenter dot org. Thank you for your time.